Christmas trees are held upright by Christmas tree stands, which vary greatly in design and construction. Conventional tree stands are often complicated and cumbersome and require considerable time and effort to assemble and use. Most stands do not have a simple method of attachment to the tree and may require removal of the lower limbs to fit properly on the stand or to allow the attachment of fasteners. In addition, many stands include a multitude of parts which make the stands expensive to manufacture and complicated to assemble and adjust. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,429,846; 3,610,558; 3,250,504 and 2,905,414 which all disclose Christmas tree stands with complicated and time consuming mounting procedures.
It is often desirable to place the severed end of the trunk of the tree in a pan of water where the tree can take in water or other liquids. This keeps the tree fresh and lessens its susceptibility to fire. Many Christmas tree stands are designed to accommodate the use of a pan of water, but most of these require mounting the pan on a platform or tray. This arrangement is complicated and involves a high chance that the water will spill when the tree is removed from the pan. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,067 disclosing a wheeled Christmas tree stand having separate mounting brackets for the tree and the pan of the water, both of which are attached to the frame of the stand. Other tree stands have problems with water leaking from the openings that are formed in the pan which are necessary to accommodate the various mounting hardware. Although some Christmas tree stands have a single nail or screw extending vertically from the base of the stand which is received in the base of the tree to hold the tree upright, many of these tree stands, are not of sufficient rigidity to allow easy insertion of the spike or nail without the use of tools other than a hammer or mallet and may require that the tree be pre-drilled with a hole to allow insertion of the spike or nail. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,272,462 which discloses a stand with a separable central spike that is inserted into a pre-drilled hole in a tree. The spike is secured in a central opening in the pan with two locking nuts.
In addition, many conventional stands receive the flat, butt end of the tree against the bottom of the pan. This arrangement does not allow the tree to easily draw in water because the end of the tree is effectively sealed against the large flat surface of the bottom of the pan. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,429,846; 4,254,578 and 2,905,414.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved Christmas tree stand having a single spike or screw for maintaining the tree upright.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a Christmas tree stand that can accommodate a pan of water with minimal risk of leakage or spillage of the water.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a Christmas tree stand that has an easy and uncomplicated tree mounting procedure.